Video: Creating a color mixing layer

In this movie, we are going to take all of the things we learned throughout the title and put it together into the creation of a piece of artwork from scratch. Now I am going to start off by talking about how bristles and brushstrokes take on added importance. They can even become the subject of a painting. Strokes made up of solid color tend to be static. In this movie, we are going to go ahead and take all of the things we've learned in the previous chapters and put them together into a project, which in this case is going to be an image painted from scratch.

Join John Derry, a pioneer in the field of digital painting, as he shows how to master the natural-media painting features introduced in Photoshop CS5 in Photoshop CS5: Painting with the Mixer Brush. This course shows how to use the Mixer Brush, the Bristle Tips feature, and a new mechanism for blending colors in Photoshop to add beautiful, painterly effects to photographs, enhance artwork with paint-like strokes and illustrations, and paint entirely new art from scratch. This course also covers customizing brush characteristics and surface textures, applying keyboard shortcuts to paint smoothly and efficiently, and using a Wacom tablet to get the most out of Photoshop CS5’s painting features. Exercise files are included with the course.

Creating a color mixing layer

In this movie, we are going to take all of the things we learned throughout thetitle and put it together into the creation of a piece of artwork from scratch.Now I am going to start off by talking about how bristles and brushstrokes takeon added importance.They can even become the subject of a painting.Strokes made up of solid color tend to be static.In this movie, we are going to go ahead and take all of the things we've learnedin the previous chapters and put them together into a project, which in this caseis going to be an image painted from scratch.

Specifically, I want to talk about when you are painting from scratch,brushstrokes take on added importance.They can even become the subject.Strokes made up of solid color tend to be static.An approach to visually energizing strokes is to utilize a loaded brush technique.This technique applies multiple colors to the brush.The result is a stroke, which with color energy and complexity.To do this, we are going to be creating a mixing layer, and I want toexplain what this is.

This is just going to be a layer that later on is going to be discarded.Photoshop currently doesn't have any kind of palette that you can mix color in,so we are cobbling one together just by having a layer that will later on not bepart of the artwork.If you're working with imagery that is in a specific format, in terms of itssize, you may want to use the Extend Canvas command to temporarily make yourcanvas a little larger, wherever you prefer.I tend to do it over on the left side, but in this case, I am just going topaint right on the edge of the current image.

But in the case of a specific image format, you may want to add that imagery,go ahead and mix there, create the image, and when you're done, delete thatlayer and then crop the image down to the size that is in accordance with your project.So we've created a layer.I am now going to start using my brushes, and these Tool presets are brushesthat are included in your exercise files.I showed you how to import this library in the Organizing the Tool Presets panel movie.These brushes are not required for this chapter.

You can create your own brushes based on what you've learned in the Mixer brushand Bristle Tips chapters and hopefully, you will;that's the way you are going to get the best result - use your own brushes.Now before I start, I want to show you something you can do with the Tool presets.There is some brushes I am going to want to use in here.I want to use the floppy brushes right here, and they are towards the bottom of the list.I'm also going to want to be using these blunt brushes.Now, the way I have go this configured right now, it's a little difficult tohave all of these up here in the same location in my list.

So as a result, I would have to be moving up and down the list to get todifferent brushes, but you can reorganize these brushes.The way to do that is, in the Tool presets panel, go to the flyout menu anddrop down to Preset Manager.This is where I can now go in here and take these floppy brushes, and if I holdmy Shift key, I will just click on the three here that I think I'm to be using,and I am going to put them between the long and short round blunt brushes.So now they are relocated within that list.

So I can say I am done, and the other thing I can do is these icons actuallymake these list entries a little larger.So the other thing I am going to do here is to just say Text Only.You can see now I can get two or three more brushes to appear in that panel.But now I can set this up so that I have my Blunt Long and Blunt Short, as wellas the Floppy brushes all available within that window, and that's how you caneasily organize these brushes to your liking.So we've got a basic layer here, and this is going to be my mixing layer.

I am going to use this to then start mixing some colors, and the advantage tothis is when you know what your subject is going to be, if you take the time topre-mix your colors, you are going to end up with a much more color-organizedresult in the final image because some forethought was put into what colors youare using, what values scale - all of these things come into play.So creating the colors you are going to use upfront will result in a betterorganized image as the final product.

Now, I know this is going be a beach scene, so I am going to have some water,some sky, some sand color, some flora, green, so I am going to mix these basic colors.I start with a Opaque brush, and I will just kind of put some color samples on here.The idea here is that we are going to create a loaded brush technique.So having different values is going to enrich the stroke when we paint with it.Now the other thing I will do is I will take the Blender brush, and I will justkind of mix these up.

So, now this gives me not three colors, but now I've got several colors withinhere, a range of that blue.The other thing I can do is now I can take like another color, like, I will takethis one, and I am going to go in here, and I am going to turn Texture on.I can play around with how this is going to look.I'm going to use this texture, and I like the way it looks.Within the stroke, I might want to play around a little bit with the depth.Also, I want to be able to press down and get a fully loaded stroke that'ssolid, but I do like to have in the lighter areas of the stroke some bristlingappearing and close this now.

I will just test it over here, and I need to, in this case, get my Opaque brush.Now I can see where I can have some color, but still some white is showing through.This lets me just paint into this area, and I may be able to sample this so thatnot only do I have some transition of color in my stroke, but I've even got someheavier color that's peppered into that color.Just to show you what I mean, if I go in here now, and I'm using the frontbarrel button on my stylus, I can grab, say, right here, and when I paintwith this stroke, you can see how there is variation within the colors in that stroke.

That's all based on picking up all of these various tonalities and colordifferences so that it gives me a way to get a stroke that is far moreinteresting than, say, just a flat, colored stroke.That's the idea behind this;mixing these colors in advance is going to give the areas I can sample to getthis look within the strokes.So I am going to go through now and mix up all of my colors.Okay, I have now got my color palette of mixed colors created.I am now going to start off, and I am going to start off by painting in my sky.

So I am just going to grab some mix color here, and I want to do this on anindividual layer, and the best part of the trick here is don't get confused andaccidentally start painting on your mixing layer.Typically, you are going to be doing it away from here, and if you make a mistake,you can do a selection and delete it.But I'm just telling you it is kind of easy to sometimes accidentally findyourself painting on the mixer layer,so you got to watch what you are doing over here.I am going to go now create my background layer and start putting in some sky.

Applying some discipline during the painting preparation process will paydividends when the painting is finished. Plus, I will share a little secret with you:You can build up a library of reusable mixing palettes for future use by insteadof discarding your mixing palette,you save it off in a separate document.Over time, you will come up with a really nice library of preset color sets youcan use to create loaded brushes with.

Find answers to the most frequently asked questions about Photoshop CS5: Painting with the Mixer Brush .

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Q: What factors affect how well the mixer brushes in Photoshop perform? Does document size (i.e. 72dpi vs. 240dpi) affect the performance of the brushes? How can I maximize brush performance?

A: The recordings for this tutorial were generally done at a standard screen resolution, but a real-world situation will often require higher resolutions. For example, offset printing generally dictates files at 300ppi (pixels per inch). Inkjet printing is often discussed in terms of 240ppi. For web-based viewing, imagery at 72ppi is considered acceptable. You can easily determine the pixel resolution of an image by multiplying the size in inches by the above ppi (pixels per inch) factors.
Let's use a typical real-world size as an example: 20" X 24". This is a common photographic print and frame size.

Note that each of these resolution factors quadruples the total pixel count.
It is the amount of pixels being manipulated that dictates both application and brush performance. With this in mind, we can state that performance decreases as image pixel size increases. There are three primary factors that affect an application's ability to handle large pixel-based manipulation.
For the full FAQ, please download the PDF file here.

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